Heading back to Missouri yesterday, I decided to take a detour to Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge in north-central Kansas. Though I realized that the season, the weather and the time of day would all work against my observation efforts, I had never been to that refuge and I knew it was sure to be more interesting than another journey along I-70.
I thus left the Interstate at Colby, Kansas, and headed east on U.S. 24, paralleling the South Fork of the Solomon River once I was east of Hoxie; the green swath of the river valley was a welcome change from the parched topography of the drought-plagued plains and a stop at Webster Lake provided both a scenic vista and a look at the Cretaceous chalk that underlies the thin soil of that region. At Stockton, I turned north and crossed a low divide, leaving the South Fork Valley and entering the watershed of the North Fork of the Solomon. Kirwin Reservoir, around which the 10,800 acre National Wildlife Refuge was established (the first in Kansas), sits at the junction of the North Fork and Bow Creek. Despite the intense sunshine and an afternoon high of 106 degrees F, a large variety of birds were found on and along the lake.
American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, Franklin's gulls, great egrets, great blue herons and killdeer were common; joining them were a smaller number of snowy egrets, wood ducks, blue-winged teal and ring-billed gulls. While the refuge brochure indicates that cattle egrets and black terns nest at Kirwin, I did not encounter either of those species; perhaps they were out feeding on the pastures or, like many of the mammal and avian residents, taking a siesta from the mid day sun. Though I saw plenty of meadowlarks, kingbirds (eastern and western), swallows (tree, bank, barn), dickcissels, kestrels and a few red-tailed hawks, I failed to locate the upland sandpipers and greater prairie chickens that inhabit the refuge. Another visit, during the spring or autumn migration, is certainly in order; indeed, Kirwin NWR is especially well known for its large flocks of migrant cranes and waterfowl.
